Gideon flips the chain. ‘I do, but in all honesty, I’m not sure now is the right time. My father very recently died.’
Smithsen sticks a hand through the gap. ‘I know, my condolences. I was due to do some work for him.’ They shake and the builder pulls a wad of notes from his pocket. ‘Mr Chase paid me to repair some old iron guttering around the back and fix a broken tile. You best have it back. I’m very sorry.’
Gideon takes the money. He looks at it, about two hundred pounds, and returns it. ‘You keep it. Maybe you can fix the roof when you repair the fire damage?’
‘Thanks.’ The man pockets the cash and smiles sympathetically. ‘Let me get you a card from the van. You can give me a ring when you feel like it. My old man died just over a year ago, I know what it’s like. Parents are funny — they drive you mad while they’re around, then when they’re gone, you feel like your world exploded.’
Gideon starts to think that putting off the work isn’t a good idea. Nothing to be gained from delaying. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just being daft. If you’d like to take a look at the damage and give me an estimate, I’d be grateful to get the job done.’
Smithsen weighs him up. ‘You sure? It’s no trouble to come back.’
‘No. Go ahead.’ He steps outside. ‘I’ll let you in from the back. Do you want a drink? I’ve just put the kettle on.’
‘That’d be great. Tea, two sugars, please.’
Gideon pads through the house. It feels strangely reassuring to have the mundane distraction of a workman around the place. Normality. An acceptance that life goes on. He unlocks the back door.
It doesn’t take the builder long to size up the job. The walls are made from heavy stone, little real damage done. They’ll need pressure washing inside and out and probably repointing in places. Gideon puts down a mug of tea for him. Smithsen thanks him and carries on making pencil notes on a sheet of folded paper.
The inside of the study is a big mess. The parquet flooring is ruined and will need to be relaid. The window will have to be replaced. The ceiling plaster has all cracked off and the beams and joists are exposed and blackened by smoke. He wanders through to the kitchen where Gideon is stood sorting through the morning’s post. ‘Sorry to interrupt. Do you mind if I take a look upstairs, over the study? I think the floor may have been made unsafe because of the fire.’
‘Sure, go ahead.’
‘Thanks.’
Gideon wonders how many more letters are going to arrive in his father’s name and how long he’ll feel a stab of loss every time they do. Another thought hits him. One more disturbing. The door to the room is open. He drops the post and runs up the stairs.
The man is nowhere to be seen.
He rushes into the bedroom. Smithsen is not there.
Gideon dashes into the corridor and into the little room. The builder is on his knees in the corner. He looks up with half a smile on his face. ‘There’s a bit of a creak in the middle but it’s probably all right. Is it okay to take this carpet up and do some proper stress checks?’
‘No. No, it’s not okay.’ He can’t help but look and sound flustered. ‘Look, this is a mistake. I’m sorry. It’s too soon. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’
Smithsen stands up. ‘I understand. No problem. But I wouldn’t spend time in here until you’ve had the place checked out. The fire has probably damaged the beams and you might have a bad accident if the floor is unsafe.’
‘Thanks. But right now I need you to go.’
The man gives him another sympathetic look. ‘Sure. I’ll put that card through your letterbox. Ring me when you’re really sure that you’re ready to have things done.’
Gideon follows him down and says goodbye at the back door. His heart is hammering. Maybe he’s paranoid. Spooked by nothing. The guy seemed honest enough, even nice. He was just trying to help out.
But something is nagging him. He watches the builder’s van drive off and then he returns to the room.
His father’s books have been moved.
41
Caitlyn Lock has a simple rule about men — one date, one goodbye. Simple as that.
Sitting in her father’s apartment, she is reminding herself of all the reasons to stick to it. But there is something about Jake Timberland that makes her want to throw caution to the wind.
It’s not just that he is good-looking. They always are. Or that he is wealthy. They all have to be. It’s that he’s … well … so … British. Which after all is why she is in the damned country in the first place. To get a slice of Britain. See something older than her grandmother’s house. A culture that shaped the world, a people that dominated half the globe. Queen and Empire and all that weird stuff.
And deep down, yes, she had even thought about meeting a man like him. The kind who is exotically unusual and deep. Awkward even. She knows that there’s more to Jake than meets the eye. Maybe even romance. Her parents’ split had pretty much drop-kicked that thought out of her, but now it’s back, prompted by the text he’s just sent. A picture message of a beautiful sunrise. Below it the words, ‘Sit with me through this. Drive with me through the night to a place full of ancient magic. Be with me through a cherry-coloured sunrise and laugh with me until sunset.’
The proposition is a delicious one. No nightclubs and paparazzi wolves. No prying eyes of her father’s security team. Pure escapism. The message appeals to her spirit, one starved of the taste of freedom. She types in a simple reply: ‘Yes!’
She doesn’t know how she’ll get past the men in suits who are always watching, with their radios and surveillance logs, but she will. Tonight she’ll escape the golden cage and fly.
42
The builder’s surprise visit and nosing around has made Gideon feel vulnerable. The big old house is isolated. He’s been attacked once already and doesn’t want it to happen again. He certainly doesn’t want to lose the books and the secrets they contain about his father. He needs to take precautions. Lock the gates. Put the alarm on.
It takes several calls and more than an hour to convince the security company that he isn’t a burglar. Finally they tell him how to reset the system and he’s pleasantly shocked at how noisy it is. Not that it matters. You could let off a small nuclear explosion and it would probably go unnoticed around here.
Which is why he searches the place for things to defend himself with. He finds an axe in the shed and takes a large knife from a wooden block in the kitchen. The best he can muster. Makes him feel slightly deranged, carrying them around while making beans on toast for a late lunch but deranged is better than scared.
Afterwards, he finds a handheld controller to lock the garden gates. He activates them, then sets the alarm to cover the downstairs and retires to his father’s hidden room with a cup of tea, bottle of water and his knife and axe. He knows life can’t go on like this. But right now he needs to feel secure not scared rigid. He remembers the builder’s comments about the floor being unsafe. What if he’s right? What if the fire has burned the support timbers and any second now they give way. He’ll fall through, break his back probably. Gideon feels like he’s going mad. Fear is spreading through him like a virus. He’s got to kill it off.
Methodically and unemotionally, he clears his head by deciphering the journals. By late evening finds he’s able to translate automatically, rather than writing out the symbols first. He reads how Nathaniel believed followers of the Sacreds were saved from the outbreak of Asiatic Flu, Russian Flu, in 1889, when a million people were killed. Similarly, how they avoided the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak — a virus that went on to claim the lives of almost fifty million people. It was the same in 1957, when Asian Flu swept the world and wiped out almost two million people. And in 1968, when Hong Kong Flu killed a million and again in 2009, during the deadly outbreak of Swine Flu, the H1N1 virus. None of the Followers perished.